Dear Readers,

Welcome to the latest edition of The Prologue, the weekly summary of the news from the world of competitive cycling by your friends at
VeloNews.com.

The professional peloton is in post-Tour mode and turning its collective attention to the rest of the season and there's still plenty going on out there.

Friday marks the beginning of the Deutschland Tour, the eight-day stage race in Germany, as always highlighted by a tough trip into Austria for some of the tour's most brutal climbs. This year's Great-German-Hope, Linus Gerdemann, who earned the yellow jersey at the Tour de France, hopes to make a mark on his national tour. [More]

Gerdemann [Left] and his T-Mobile teammates got good news on the eve of the German Tour, when Deutsche Telekom announced that, despite this summer's positive doping test by Patrik Sinkewitz, the telecommunications giant would continue to support the team through 2010. [More]

The team currently facing an uphill battle on the doping front has to be the Kazakh-financed Astana team, which announced Wednesday that another rider - this time Andrey Kashechkin - tested positive for homologous blood doping. [More]

Meanwhile, CSC's Christian Vande Velde - who announced last week that he's joining the U.S.-based Slipstream team - is set to ride the Vuelta a Espana, which begins on Saturday, September 1. [More]

We've received a number reader letters over the past week concerning the premature death of South African Ryan Cox [Right] of Barloword. >[More] Many of you have asked for a more detailed explanation of the condition that led to his surgery and the ensuing complications that ultimately led to his death. We asked VeloNews.com's Dr. Dawn Richardson to address those questions and explain what causes iliac artery endofibrosis, how it is treated and the risks.
[More]

Finally, we'd like to direct your attention to our weekly reader-submitted gallery of photos. Yes, the gallery went missing for a bit during the Tour de France, but we're back to our regular work schedule, so it's back and we'd love to see your submissions. It's grown into one of our favorite features on VeloNews.com. We're sure that you'll like it, too.
[More]

Regarding the gallery and our new submission tool. We have noticed several incomplete uploads from many of you. One problem is that the system does not accept file names that contain non-alphanumeric characters. In other words, do not upload a file that contains characters that are not numbers or part of the alphabet. We are certain that !,#)('&0^%]}* and other non-alphanumeric characters won't work. The system will not process images with any of them in the name of the file.

Have a good week and enjoy the weather if yours is anything like ours is in the Rockies right now.

All the best,

Charles Pelkey
Editor, VeloNews.com
CPelkey@insideinc.com